Societe Generale is sponsoring Inria's project to create a unique and universal source code archive

Software Heritage is an initiative organised by Inria* to build a global library of all software - a unique database of source code. With this universal, permanent archive, Software Heritage aims to build a global resource for computer science research, an essential infrastructure serving society, science and industry.
Societe Generale is the only bank involved in the project, and this initiative is part of its strategic priority of succeeding the digital transformation in order to become THE relationship-focused bank, a reference on its markets.

Open Source First
Digital and its new uses are transforming the Bank so it can offer its customers personalised, transparent, seamless and integrated services. Societe Generale’s focus is on services and the use of APIs and it is promoting Open Source development throughout the Group. Open Source software allows flexibility, inter-operability, innovation and agility. The added value generated through Open Source software is evaluated for each new project.

Open Source was initiated by some of Societe Generale's developers, who wanted to share practices, standards and technology building blocks to help them innovate faster. It is now a major issue for the Group.
For the developers at Societe Generale, using Open Source goes hand in hand with contributing to it. Over 30 community projects in which they may get involved have already been identified.

Open Source also opens doors to new digital practices, which underlie operations at Les Dunes, Societe Generale’s technology hub in eastern Paris. The 5,000 staff members who work at Les Dunes use community-based working methods (hackathons, meet-ups), establish partnerships with competitiveness clusters and startups and set up labs and experiments on a daily basis.

“ We are aware of the importance of code in our digital transformation. Code has become a major issue and we are convinced of the need to preserve it over the long term. By using Open Source, which is by nature a collaborative and community-based technological innovation, we work together to develop collective intelligence and a new customer-centric banking model,” said Xavier Lofficial, Group Head of Transformation, Processes and Information Systems at Societe Generale.

* Inria, the French National Institute for computer science and applied mathematics, promotes “scientific excellence for technology transfer and society”. Graduates from the world’s top universities, Inria's 2,700 employees rise to the challenges of digital sciences. With its open, agile model, Inria is able to explore original approaches with its partners in industry and academia and provide an efficient response to the multidisciplinary and application challenges of the digital transformation.
https://www.inria.fr/en/institute/inria-in-brief/inria-in-a-few-words

To know more about the Software Heritage project